It’s a good Fall for music: I like the Sugababes album (though it does seem a little mean of them to have stolen Mutya’s idea of making a northern soul record), and I’m obviously eagerly anticipating the new Britney and Girls Aloud records that are on their way. Meanwhile, the Russian version of the new t.A.T.u. album is out, and I fear I’m a little underwhelmed, although I have enjoyed transliterating the song titles. The previously released tracks, “Белый Плащик” is fairly good and “220” is extremely good. Other tracks show promise, such as “Снегопады,” which starts fairly well, and has what sounds like a rather good bridge, which unfortunately fails in one crucial aspect, because the song doesn’t have a chorus for it to lead in to. On the whole, though, I don’t find myself being grabbed by the album as much as I would have expected; perhaps it’s just the estrangement effect of it being in Russian. A friend of mine suggested I learn Russian, to test that theory.

There is, though, one significant exception to this indifference: “Fly on the Wall” is absolutely fantastic. All the elements of the song work together perfectly: the tense build-up of the verse spills over into the psycho-sexual bass rumblings of the chorus; better still, the industrial clanking of the drums suggests a social context for the whole thing.

I suppose it is, at least here in America, where they bizarrely start their seasons on the quarter days, so that summer doesn’t start until midsummer. Besides which, most of the songs I’m listening to right now I’ve been listening to for a while, so they probably fulfill the rigorous terms of the meme:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

The new tATu single “220” has apparently been causing some controversy among fans, which is pretty incomprehensible, as it’s wholly excellent. I don’t think I’ve mentioned their last single, either. I saw somewhere that they thought its video carried an anti-abortion message, which is disappointing; we may have to count them out as leaders of the cybernetic communist revolution. It’s a pretty great video, though, all giant concrete structures and soviet goth uniforms:

The disadvantage of not posting anything for a while is that whatever post you write inevitably takes on the mantle of being a post worth breaking your silence for. Luckily, this problem was solved for me by finding something I couldn’t not post: a preview of the tATu film.

Unexpectedly, the SFPD seem to be taking a leaf out of the Moscow police department’s book, discouraging people from coming to various Gay-Pride related events for “safety” reasons. This comes on the heels of the city’s idiotic response to the other main gay festival, Halloween, where their plan for the past few years has been to first claim the event can’t possibly go ahead safely, then refuse to engage in any planning as to how it might be organized, then try and shut it down while people are still arriving, then claim that the resulting chaos proves that the city was right all along. The SFPD’s problem here probably isn’t homophobia, though, but a more general hostility to any kind of collective use of public space (see also critical mass or the love parade, for instance).

I see that the theme for this year’s parade is “Pride Not Prejudice.” Good to see some innovative thinking there. The previous years’ themes of “Shame and Discrimination” and “Hatred and Regular Violence” were surprisingly poorly received.